Leaving the Dream
by a1y-puff
Summary: You never know what you've got till it's gone. But when Shinou's feeling "generous", he might just give you a taste. -YuuRam-


**EDIT 28/07/2010: ADDING LINEBREAKS coz ffnet sucks like that :(**

**Title:** Leaving the Dream  
**Author:** a1y-puff  
**Fandom:** Kyou Kara Maou  
**Pairing:** Yuuri/Wolfram  
**Genre: **Angst? With a bit of fluff.

**Word Count:** ~2300

**Summary:** You never know what you've got 'till it's gone. But when Shinou's feeling "generous", he might just give you a taste.  
**Rating:** PG  
**Warning:** Weirdness?  
**Disclaimer:** Me no richie, me no ownie~

**A/N:** Because **Isumi 'kivic'** doesn't have time to write me a Yuuram fluff no matter how often I poke her, I wrote this to amuse myself. Turned out to be not so much of a fluff due to my weird attachment to angst, but oh well XD; pardon the weirdness, if you would? :)

For Isu, because I fail to write her the Yullen drabble I promised her. Here, have a Yuuram fic instead. Yullen, Yuuram, sounds similar no? *bricked*. Also, _**advanced Happy Birthday to Yuuri~**_

And, **Animegoil**, thanks soooo much for being such an awesome beta~! -hugs-

* * *

**~LEAVING THE DREAM~**

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* * *

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It started with a fire. A big, bad fire blazing right before his eyes and Yuuri couldn't remember how exactly it started, how it happened or even _where _he currently was.

All he knew was that there was a big fire, and somehow, somewhere in the middle of the fire dancing almost beautifully, Wolfram was burning.

He couldn't move, he couldn't speak, hell he didn't even know if he was breathing, but his eyes… he felt like his eyes were glued to the scene before him, to the fire licking and enveloping his friend so that all he could see was a black silhouette in the midst of red and orange, and…

The scream. The agonized sound ringing in his ears was both familiar and foreign. Familiar, because it was _Wolfram._ Foreign, because he had never before heard the proud mazoku prince make any sound like that.

He wanted to shout. He wanted to run. He wanted to go Maou, _now,_ because it was the only way he could ever hope to save his friend, but his body wouldn't budge. And where was his alter-ego when he needed him so badly? Why wouldn't he change now? Why—

The silhouette moved as the fire got bigger and then slowly, painfully, it crumbled down and disappeared, eaten alive by its own element.

It was like his mind was shutting down after that, going through events in a haze without remembering when and how, because the next thing he knew, he was standing in one of the rooms back in the castle, safe and sound. Everything had gone back to normal.

_But Wolfram isn't here._

He walked closer to the crowds of people in front of him and noticed, with a distant awareness, that all of them wore a solemn expression on their faces. He heard faint sobs and some hitched breathings, and noticed that a lot of them wore Wolfram's color.

His feet moved faster, bringing him closer and closer to the front of the room where familiar faces looked back at him with so much pain, and dread started crawling up his stomach.

"Daddy," Greta called, and Yuuri looked down to meet his daughter's tear-filled eyes. Greta took his hand and led him forward, and Yuuri found his steps got heavier and heavier, the closer he got to the front of the room.

Lady Celi was in tears, clinging to the right arm of his second son who had lost his smile. Gwendal's face look so pinched that it was painful to look at, and beside him, Annissina stood expressionless with red eyes while her hand was clutching at the green material of Gwendal's sleeve. There was also Gunter with an arm around Gisela as she sobbed into his white-clad chest. Finally, Murata stood there, face down and glasses obscuring his eyes. On his right shoulder Shinou stood, looking at Yuuri with regretful eyes.

A pristine white coffin made of fine wood caught Yuuri's eyes, and it was like his heart dropped to his stomach. He stumbled towards the last three steps to the coffin and dropped to his knees.

There was no one –_ nothing –_ but a set of Wolfram's blue uniform along with his broken sword inside the coffin.

"There was nothing left of him," he heard Yozak's voice, somber and heavy and _pained._

Yuuri felt like throwing up.

He heard Lady Celi's sobs got louder and the faint murmuring of Conrad, probably trying—and failing—to calm his mother. Yuuri couldn't tear his eyes away from the unbearably familiar set of clothing inside the casket. With shaking hands, Yuuri tentatively touched the blue fabric he'd known so well, and that was when it came down on him.

In every sense of the word, Wolfram was _gone. _And _nothing _was left of him.

"Why…" Greta choked in between tears and sobs and Yuuri turned to pull his daughter into his arms.

Yuuri could do nothing but hug her, could say nothing because his throat felt constricted, could only drown himself in Greta's soft, repeated whispers of _why, why, why_ and finally, let his tears out.

Everything else was a blur to him. Yuuri couldn't remember the funeral, when he went back to their—_his—_room, or even how long he'd been standing there. All he knew was that he was there, standing in the middle of the royal bedchamber.

His eyes felt dry—when did he stop crying?—but now he felt hollowed out. The room felt much, much colder than usual, and it left him feeling so alone.

He looked at their neatly made bed and saw a shadow of his roommate dutifully making the bed in the morning, still wearing that ridiculous pink nightie and grumbling about how messy the bed was, glaring at Yuuri when he _helpfully_ informed his friend that Wolfram was the one responsible for the mess that was their bed.

He glanced at the vanity and saw the wooden hairbrush Wolfram usually used to try taming his hair—oh futility—but he'd always give up after a string of whispered curses that Wolfram thought Yuuri never heard.

His eyes traced the walls of his room to a corner near the door, where there lay a half-finished painting of him that Wolfram had started around a week ago. Wolfram had insisted on finishing it, but Yuuri—tired and bored and '_eew, the smell!'_—had argued that it was only a painting, they could continue it next time and that for now he had a country to run.

Wolfram had sighed at the obvious lie—since when had Yuuri loved paperwork anyway?—but he had relented and let it go, not even asking Yuuri to make a promise of when he would model for Wolfram again to finish the painting.

Now, Yuuri walked over to the big canvas at the corner and pulled the white cloth covering it. There he saw the painting, still so incomprehensible, so abstract, so… _Wolfram. _And he regretted not letting Wolfram finish it.

Everywhere he looked in this room, Wolfram's shadow was there; his scent on the pillow on their bed, his uniforms still neatly hung inside their dressers, his strands of blond hair tangled in his hairbrush on the vanity, his fire on the candles and oil lamps around the room, his voice echoing from every corner—

_But Wolfram isn't here anymore._

Then it hit him, this feeling of emptiness, this ridiculous amount of loss, this feeling of having a part of him ripped away, leaving him incomplete.

Wolfram, ever since Shinou-knew-when, had been a part of his existence. Wolfram was the one constantly pulling him up and forward to his limits, the one to smack senses back into him, the one protecting him, the one constantly by his side no matter what.

Without Wolfram, Yuuri didn't know what to do, how to go on. He was at a loss, his very existence wasn't whole. He just… couldn't _be_ without Wolfram.

_But it's too late now, isn't it?_

Yuuri wanted to scream, he wanted to shout at Shinou or any other deities responsible for this world to please, please, _please give Wolfram back._

And for the first time ever since the whole ordeal, Yuuri broke down. His knees gave out and he crumbled to the floor, screaming and crying and calling out, _Wolfram, Wolfram, Wolfram..._

_Come back, please…_

_

* * *

_

"Yuuri, wake up!"

Confused, disoriented black eyes blinked open and Wolfram could barely sigh in relief, because those tear-filled eyes were still unseeing. He had just come back from his night patrol duty, only managing to take off his blue jacket and boots when he heard the King muttering and sobbing in his sleep. So he had approached the bed and what he had found was Yuuri's tear-stained face, looking pained and miserable and Wolfram just _couldn't_ see him like that.

And he had decided to wake him up.

A part of Yuuri was still left in the dream as he was moaning and sobbing with eyes searching but not seeing. His head moved restlessly and his hands twitched at his sides, as if looking for something to hold onto, something to ground him to reality.

"Hey, look at me," Wolfram grabbed the sides of Yuuri's face and tried to make the younger boy to focus on him. "Look at me, Yuuri," he repeated.

Tears still streaming down his face, Yuuri slowly seemed to be snapping out of it. Focus coming back to his eyes, Yuuri slowly, weakly called, " …Wolf?"

"Yes, it's me."

Silence descended on the room for a few moments and Wolfram watched as those black eyes widened in a mix of confusion and comprehension.

"…It was a dream…?" Yuuri asked, still disoriented. Slowly, Yuuri's shaking hands came up and clutched the front of Wolfram's white shirt. "Bu-but the fire was… it was so real and—and painful and Greta was—everyone was—and you were… you were…"

"Shh, it's okay," Wolfram said in a gentle tone he often used for Greta. He made more shushing noises when Yuuri's tears came back with a vengeance. "It's okay, Yuuri. Whatever it was, it was just a nightmare, okay?"

Wolfram kept on shushing Yuuri as his fiancé was reduced to a sobbing mess of a king, caressing Yuuri's back in circular motion to try and calm him down and just holding his king as he trembled in his arms. After a moment, Yuuri seemed to have calmed down a bit, but then Wolfram heard a chuckling noise. He looked down to find his fiancé chuckling against his chest, shaking hands still gripping the front of his white shirt.

"Why are you laughing?" Wolfram asked warily. Then, something hit his mind, and he exclaimed, "Oh no, you ate something weird, didn't you? One minute you were bawling and the next you're laughing. It's gotta be some poisonous mushroom or something!"

At that, Yuuri's laughter got louder, and Wolfram was torn between worrying and wanting to strangle his fiancé, because it felt like Yuuri was laughing at him for getting all worried and worked up and—

"Okay, I'm calling Gisela. You stay here," said Wolfram as he made to push himself up and away from the clutches of his fiancé. But just as he was about to put one foot on the floor, he was pulled back into bed again.

"No! Don't—don't go... just stay here. I didn't eat anything weird, I swear. Just…stay. Please?"

Half curious and half amazed, Wolfram peered down at Yuuri's face. Was the nightmare really that bad that Yuuri would cling to him like a lifeline?

"Okay," Wolfram said slowly, shifting to make himself comfortable. "I'll stay with you since you're such a wimp that you've let a simple nightmare scare you," he added a bit haughtily, because he _had_ to, to mask the bubbly feelings in his chest at having Yuuri need him _this_ badly.

He didn't care if tomorrow, they would probably be back to square one; that Yuuri would probably freak out in the morning and jump out of bed. And maybe, they would proceed to pretend that this had never happened—or at least, _Yuuri_ would, because Wolfram would place this piece of memory in a safety box at the back of his mind to recall later when it felt like he wanted to give up.

So he stayed there, stroking Yuuri's head with silent affection, and carefully memorized the way Yuuri's fists tightened on his shirt, holding on as if not wanting to ever let go.

As for Yuuri, he felt ridiculously relieved, so, so relieved that Wolfram was alive, and _there _and he didn't know if he should laugh or cry, so he did both. There was a part of him still traumatized by the dream that didn't want to let Wolfram go for fear that if he did, Wolfram would just disappear.

As he tightened his hold on Wolfram's shirt, he told himself that tomorrow, when he woke up, Wolfram would still be there.

Tomorrow, he would ask Wolfram to finish the painting now sitting at the corner of the room.

Tomorrow, he might even help Wolfram attempt—and probably fail—to tame his wavy golden locks.

Tomorrow, he would stop being such a wimp and make peace with the still unnamed emotions stirring and swirling inside his chest whenever Wolfram was involved.

But for now, Yuuri just wanted to succumb to the warmth that was Wolfram and hold on and never let go.

For now, this was enough.

* * *

"That was way too cruel, even for a dream," said the great sage, glasses glinting with the moonlight.

A figure smirked at him from his seat on top of one of the boxes. With a playful tone, he said, "Whatever are you talking about, my sage? I was only giving him a taste of what he might lose to spare him the regrets if it ever happened."

"Yes, but you don't need to be that gory. Burnt to death with nothing left? That's a little bit drastic, don't you think?"

Shinou's eyes glinted in the dark. "Oh but that friend of yours has been in _extreme_ denial, one would think a drastic measure would be the most effective."

Murata sighed as he crossed his arms and muttered under his breath, "I'm pretty sure it's just your hobby."

"What was that?"

"Nothing," said Murata as he uncrossed his arms and turned around. Before he walked to the door, the great sage looked over his shoulder to the amused original king and said, "You are never coming to my bedroom at night and whisper horrible, gory things to my ear as I sleep."

The smile at Shinou's face considerably widened. "Don't worry," he said, far too amused for Murata's liking, "I'll whisper sweet nothings instead."

Murata snorted.

"Or perhaps something more to the liking of your perverted mind."

And Murata walked away, one nonchalant hand waving in the air dismissively, but it did nothing to dampen the amusement of the Great One.

For Shinou—and only _Shinou_—knew it was actually an open invitation.

* * *

**~NeverEnding~**

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**A/N: **Uh, weird fic is weird. I attempted this in the midst of my writing's block (Isu, I'm sure you know what I mean?) so yeah. Hope it still entertained? :)

Feedbacks are appreciated, though since it's kind of my very first (finished) KKM/Yuuram fic, please be gentle. :)

(Also, **Rizuka**, I already have the complete plot for your prompt—waterfall—in mind, but can't write yet. It's actually more fitting for Yuuri's b'day tho. I'll see when I can write it :D)


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